Marketing Workshops Claire Eva, Head of Marketing, Tate What's in It
Arts Marketing Association Why? AMA Conference 2008
Seminars: Marketing Workshops
Claire Eva, Head of Marketing, Tate What's in it for me? Tried and tested communication techniques Claire Eva is head of marketing for Tate. She oversees marketing strategy and research as well as working on innovative ideas for exhibition and collection campaigns at both London galleries. She also manages the marketing for the Turner Prize each year and has been working with advertising agency Fallon on a series of audience development projects for Tate Britain and Tate Modern. Previously she has worked for Hayward Gallery and National Touring Exhibitions in London and at the Arnolfini in Bristol.
In this session Claire looked at best practice in marketing communications and how marketing campaigns are changing to meet the needs of today’s audiences. She looked at the segmentation of audiences according to the sort of experiences people want, rather than how old they are and where they live. The workshop took place twice during the conference, with delegate responses in this report coming from the session on Day 2.
Segmentation
This session is about segmentation and the practical ways in which it can be applied in an arts organisation. For the Tate, segmentation can be a challenge because it is a gallery and the majority of visitors don’t buy a ticket. They look round and then leave and it is difficult to collect data about them. Much of the Tate’s marketing is also based on broadcast style techniques, such as advertising on the underground and press ads and has very little box office data.
However, the Tate has 80,000 members about which it knows a great deal and it undertakes extensive research into visitors, with a major research study undertaken by Mori three times a year. This coincides with the exhibition cycle and is a quantitative survey looking at who is coming and their demographic profile and including a few questions aimed at informing segmentation of the visitor base.
Home Pregnancy Tests (hpts) are an interesting example of how segmentation works in the commercial world. There are two main groups of people interested in buying hpts: those who want to be pregnant (‘the hopefuls’) and those who do not (‘the fearfuls’) and the hpts are sold to each group in a different way.
The Hopefuls The Fearfuls
‘Conceive’ ‘Rapid Vue’ Pink box with smiling mother Mauve box, no baby image and baby Sold alongside other testing kits Sold near condoms £8.99 £5.99
It’s exactly the same product but the marketing approach is different for each group.
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Segmentation at Tate
Tate Modern and Tate Britain (formerly The Tate Gallery) opened in 2000. Previously, The Tate Gallery had 2m visitors a year and it had been expected that when the two galleries were opened there would be approximately 2m visitors in each. However, Tate Modern had 5m visitors a year and Tate Britain 1.1m.
Therefore a key task involved having to work out why so many people were coming to Tate Modern and why there had been a drop-off at Tate Britain. Morris Hargreaves McIntyre was commissioned, in 2003, to help Tate look at its audiences in more detail. A range of research techniques were used, including quantitative surveying, mystery shopping and observational analysis. This included looking at the ways that people moved around and behaved within the spaces.
As an initial assessment, it was concluded that people were visiting for one of the following reasons: Church – spiritual visit Spa – emotional visit Archive – intellectual visit Attraction – social visit In some ways, this has a parallel with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs with it being a pyramid of types of reason, with the social visits having the most people and the spiritual people – the art specialists at the top who are looking for a regular gallery hit. These were divided into smaller segments, all specific to Tate, but having some similarities with other gallery segmentations.
Church Aficionados - visual arts professionals looking for inspiration and escapism. Artists, curators, professionally involved. Actualisers - non-visual arts professionals seeking inspiration or soul food. Arts enthusiasts who are very well informed and soak up everything. Spa Sensualists - non-visual arts professionals, culture vultures seeking emotional experience. Tend to be more female than male. Well informed and have broad taste in arts. Archive Researchers - visual arts professionals on research and development visits. Feel they need to be up to date with what is going on – attending the Turner Prize for example. Self-improvers - people developing their visual arts knowledge. Want to know about art history, filling in the gaps in what they know, how it fits into historical contexts. Attraction Families - mixed age groups, social or intellectual in their motivation. Large number coming for a nice day out with their children. Social spacers - people visiting or meeting with others, wanting to make the place their own. Going on a date, taking their parents round, hanging out in the bar. Site seers - mainly tourists who want ‘to do’ the gallery. More likely to go to Modern than Britain because it’s high on their ‘things to do’ map.
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The research and consequent segmentation rang true, but it took time to gain acceptance and influence the practices of the organisation. Many presentations and discussions were required, right up to board level in order for the next stage of progression to be made.
It revolutionised the way that signage and notices are done at the gallery. For example, the interpretation panels start with a top paragraph for social spacers, the second paragraph is for people who want to dig a bit deeper and the third paragraph is more for the specialists because they are happy to work their way through the whole panel. It meant completely turning around the way that the panels were written, so that they don’t start off with ‘Turner was born in …’ Of particular interest to Tate were the sensualists because it was thought that the full potential of this segment was not being realised. So, special attention aimed to target this group better. For the Turner Whistler Monet exhibition therefore, the copy focused on the experience of being in the gallery, the colours of the paintings and the immersive feeling of being in the gallery, using words like ‘ravishing’ and ‘glorious’. The media campaign meanwhile concentrated on the self-improver style segments. Wheel of Appeal
In order to make this approach to segmentation part of a longer-term strategy, Tate devised its own ‘wheel of appeal’ [see next page]. At the centre of the wheel are the people who are at the top of the segmentation pyramid, the aficionados and actualisers. In contrast, the outside band has the group at the bottom – the site seers.
When looking at the previous offer for the different segments/bands it was clear that it was mainly centred on the middle circle and bands, with most events and activity being put on to satisfy these segments. On the other hand, the bands on the wheel (segments) which made up the largest number of current and potential visitors have relatively little for them.
More recent campaigns have aimed to do more for the segments at the outside edges of the wheel of appeal, although it’s important to note that much marketing activity is still targeted at the aficionados in the centre, with a poster [right] including the name of the artist, an example of the work and dates of when it is taking place.
Campaigns
Tate Modern has been able, because of its large visitor base, to change its audience profile rather than having to try and attract more visitors in general. Instead Tate aimed to encourage two particular sets of people to attend: families and 15-24 year olds.
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Wheel of appeal Symposia Academic Adult Programmes One room contemporary exhibitions Artists’ film programme Performance art events Contemporary art events Library & Archive Academic resources
Community events Education outreach projects Handheld experiences
Artist talks The Building/Sightseeing Niche (contemporary) Café exhibitions Shop Tate ETC magazine
Members Mid-scale exhibitions Collection Displays Major Exhibitions Exhibition tours Free family events The Long Weekend Catalogues Tate Online Late at Tate Britain Handheld media tour Restaurants Audioguides Unilever projects Daily Guided Tours
Tate Tracks
Following research into 15-24 year olds, Tate decided that one of the best ways of attracting this group of people was through music.
Tate approached current popular groups to see if they would write a track inspired by a work in the Tate Modern collection (for free). They began with the Chemical Brothers and then used their involvement to sell on the idea to other groups. In the end, several notable bands and musicians took part: Basement Jaxx, New Young Pony Club, Graham Coxon, Roll Deep, Klaxons, The Landscapers, Lethal Bizzle.
To begin with it was only possible to hear the tracks by putting on the headphones next to the specific works of art and then after a month they were put online. Each band had its own site and network which linked into the Tate site encouraging further traffic. This was supported by leafleting and fly-posting in appropriate places though this was fairly low-key.
A year on, Tate followed it up with ‘Your Tate Track’ which was a competition for people to produce their own music inspired by artwork, with people voting for their favourite. MySpace was contacted to see if they might support it; they did, dedicating the home page to the project for a whole week for free. 250 bands entered, each of which had to visit or go online.
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A campaign that ran over the summer of 2008 for the Street Art exhibition encouraged further interest amongst this target group. It has work on the side of the building so people can see it without even entering the building.
One of the Tate’s marketing officers came up with the idea of using blank (grey) posters [see left] which could be filled in with participants’ own artwork. The posters were taken to different locations in London and encouraged young people to find out about what was going on, asking questions about the Street Art exhibition.
Families
Tate isn’t able to work on family friendly campaigns throughout the year, so concentrates its efforts on specific focused activities on certain days.
‘Tiny Tate’ is a family festival for people in the local area. The marketing doesn’t say anything about the artists, instead it sells the fun of the event: ‘Get lost in the Brazilian Jungle’, ‘Hide in the Mexican Desert’, ‘Make Noise in the Sound Garden’, ‘Free Picnic Lunch’.
Tate Families uses the strapline of ‘Familes: have great days out at the Tate’. For family events, a popular element have been the Family Bags. The bag itself is useful for parents but also inside are leaflets about facilities and there is a plastic folder where the child’s own artwork can be put.
People then take the bag around with them, advertising the gallery to further potential family audiences.
Tate Tales is for 8-11 year olds which uses a fantastical map of the gallery with titles of parts of the gallery such as ‘Land of the Vorticists’ and on the back of the map is a Harry Potter style tale about going through an amazing fantasy visit. This is to be followed up with an audio guide which children can take round with them.
Tourists
Again, Tate realised that a good way of marketing its work abroad, bearing in mind the site- seer segment, was to tap into the idea of Tate being a must-see destination. In France for example, it uses a picture of the main Turbine Hall accompanied by the tag line: ‘Si vous aimez le Musée Beaubourg à Paris vous allez adorer la Tate Modern à Londres.
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Exercise
Delegates were split up into groups of five. Each one was given information about the forthcoming Rothko exhibition and a segment to work on with the task of thinking about marketing the next Rothko exhibition to that segment including writing a paragraph of copy to appeal to that segment.
Ideas from the groups included:
Sensualists
- Singles night: as these tend to be people visiting on their own - encouraging people to talk and share their feelings about the work - Use words like: absorption, powerful, monumental, immerse, relax - Emphasise idea of breathing space, haven and being away from the outside world surrounded by different stimuli - Make links to other artforms like passion of Heathcliffe - Bring other senses in – the 5 senses – smell and taste - broody, dark, melancholy connections with music
Families
- special dates and times for families like Sunday mornings - activity pack - have children take part in painting – painting on the wall so that they have a sense of scale - use themes and experiences like going from dark to bright (or vice versa) - keep them away from the sensualists - feed your imagination – would you stick this on your fridge? Could have connection with big companies like Persil
Social Spacers - Rothko prints on coffee cups perhaps linking with a coffee cup chain - Social events at which champagne is served in different colours
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- Rothko room for club night type event - Singles night – wear a certain colour – Rothko Rendezvous - Rothko cocktails - Different times and opening hours - Rothko coasters - Flash mob event – not necessarily organising but allowing it to happen Site-seers
- Link the icon of Rothko or Tate Modern with modern icons - Cultural meter - ‘One thing you need to do in London’ - ‘Take a break and contemplate’ - Moving images on escalator panels on underground - Souvenirs like umbrellas - Oyster Card liaison - Electronic visitor books so that people can put up their comments perhaps texting or emailing them in - See it for £12.50 or go to Japan instead - Complimentary or extra included things like a tour to go with it
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